As the Winnipeg Jets entered a lengthy stretch of games without injured top-line centre Mark Scheifele, they made it quite a ways down their to-do list in Friday’s game against the New York Islanders.

But without the goaltending provided by Hellebuyck, none of the rest of the items would have mattered much.

Thanks to a 42-save effort that gave Hellebuyck 20 wins in 29 starts, the Jets earned a 4-2 triumph in a game that was a lot closer than the score may have indicated.

“You don’t want to give them any momentum, which I ended up doing later because I made a little mistake,” said Hellebuyck, referring to the second goal of the game for Islanders forward Anders Lee, which came after a juicy rebound. “But I think those saves are what I’m here for and that’s what I’ve been working for.

“I don’t love having huge saves like that because that means usually you make a mistake and you have to cover for yourself, but once in a while it feels good.”

The Jets, who improved to 22-11-6, open a two-game trip on Sunday against the Edmonton Oilers.

Two of Hellebuyck’s best saves came against former Jets captain Andrew Ladd, including a point-blank on a two-on-one rush with Jordan Eberle in the opening minute of the contest.

“Poor Ladd. (Hellebuyck) made a few big ones on him and that changes everything,” Jets captain Blake Wheeler said. “You start the game off like that (with a goal against), it’s a here-we-go again type of thing to when we played in their building. To keep that goose egg on the board, to get going a little bit, that’s what changes the game. You can’t say enough about it, it makes all of the difference in winning and losing.”

The Jets opened the scoring 2:32 into the contest after Shawn Matthias won a puck battle along the wall and banged home a rebound for his first goal of the season on what was his first shift after being a healthy scratch for 11 consecutive games and 20 of the past 21.

“It’s a testament to guys being good teammates and staying with it,” Wheeler said. “It’s probably the least enjoyable part of this job, when you’re out of the lineup, you’re working out every day, you’re getting skated and sometimes it seems like the end (of being a healthy scratch) is nowhere in sight. That’s the payoff right there, a guy jumps back in the lineup and scores a big goal for us.”

The Jets also got a pair of goals and six points from the reconfigured top unit of Wheeler (one goal, one assist) at centre between Kyle Connor (one goal, one assist) and Patrik Laine (two assists).

Centre Adam Lowry provided a perfect redirection for a power-play goal (as he fills in for Scheifele on the Jets top unit) to round out the scoring.

After getting blown out 5-2 by the Islanders last week in the final game before the Christmas break, the Jets were determined to respond and that’s precisely what they did — with one major caveat.

“Overall, really well. I think Connor Hellebuyck had a big piece of that early and really held us in that so we didn’t start almost the same way in the last game. And then we got better, so our overall game after that (was) pretty good. They’re the second-best offensive team in the league and you know why,” Jets head coach Paul Maurice said. “We gave up way more than I’m comfortable, so I’m not saying it was a perfect defensive game by any means, our goalie had to be a big piece of that, but overall there were lots of really good things.”

The Jets played the final two periods of the game with only 11 forwards, as Brandon Tanev was injured late in the first.

Tanev was on the receiving end of some friendly fire, as he took the brunt of the blow as Jets defenceman Josh Morrissey tried to lay out Islanders defenceman Scott Mayfield with a hard check.

Tanev took one more shift late in the period, received a pass along the boards and grabbed his right side as he made his way to the bench after getting the puck over to Jacob Trouba.

It looked like a groin or abdominal issue, though Maurice said following the contest Tanev was simply day-to-day with a lower-body injury and he didn’t rule him out of Saturday’s game.

If Tanev is sidelined, the Jets will look to recall at least one forward from the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League.

The Jets also have Marko Dano as an extra forward, though he has been limited to six games (no points) this season.

Whether another change is required or not, the Jets began the process of putting together what their game will need to look like if they want to survive the loss of Scheifele.

With one notable change — while they have plenty of confidence in Hellebuyck, the Jets know they’ll need to tighten things up defensively moving forward.

“We did a good job. Unfortunately (Scheifele) is not coming back anytime soon, so we’ve got to rely on the guys in the room,” Wheeler said. “Everyone takes responsibility in that, everyone has got to do a little bit more, do a little bit better.

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